Is blogging still a viable content marketing tool? It is a question every marketer has to ask in the backdrop of emerging digital marketing tools. The simple answer is that blogging remains a powerful search engine optimization (SEO) marketing tool.
Blogging is a powerful tool for lead generation, building customer relationships, improving customer engagement and improving ranking on search results. A blog can also help boost conversion, build brand visibility and much more.
Blogging numbers prove that this is still an essential part of any marketing strategy. Sites that have a blog page boast 434% more indexed pages. What’s more, businesses that blog receive 97% more links to their sites. Now, consider that 77% of internet users are blog readers to appreciate the importance of blogging for your marketing campaigns.
To stay on top of your blogging game, you have to incorporate the latest tech trends in the industry. With ongoing Google algorithm updates such as BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), you need to stay up-to-date with these changes.
This guide explores some of the top blogging trends you should watch out for in 2020.
Long-Form Content
For a long time, bloggers have worked with the belief that search engines love short posts 300-400 words. The most renowned bloggers, such as Neil Patel, have been talking about the importance of in-depth long-form content.
Long-from blogs stand out and will generate organic traffic for a longer time. People looking for in-depth information on any topic will look for such blogs and this is a smart strategy to gain leads.
If you want to generate relevant content to your site, it is time to start generating longer blogs. It is one of the emerging trends that will rule in 2020.
Data-Driven Blogging
Many bloggers write content for search engines in a bid to gain a higher ranking on search engines. While this strategy might work, it is counterproductive as it doesn’t generate traffic that converts. If you want to leverage blogging in 2020, it is time to take a data-driven approach in your content creation strategy.
Your content creation plan must start with research to identify what your audience would like to read. This will entail creating personas to understand what your target readers will most likely search online. A data-driven approach will help you write for your audience and not for search engines.
When working with a blogging service, you need to outline your blog content KPIs to ensure the writers work proactively to meet these. After creating your blogs, the data-driven approach also involves collecting feedback to help you act accordingly.
For instance, you will set metrics to help you evaluate your blog posts. If your content doesn’t achieve the KPIs you’ve set, you need to go back to the drawing board.
If you have an eCommerce website on which you host the blog, there are many built-in tools to help you collect the data you need for your content. One feature of eCommerce-friendly websites is that they support analytics which will come in handy for you.
Quality Content
You need quality content for your blog in 2020. It is not just about the length of content you write but also the quality of the content. Your blogs should quickly answer the question users will most likely ask.
Gone are the days when all emphasis was on keywords. Instead, you have to focus on LSI keywords, semantic search terms and questions users will ask. You should also leverage available online tools to refine your blogs and eliminate all grammatical errors or spelling mistakes.
Visual Content
The mention of blogging brings instantly brings to mind text content. However, things have changed and today you have to augment text with visuals to get your point across. Video has emerged as the most popular form of content. In one study,88% of marketers say they use video marketing as it offers them with positive ROI.
Visual content breaks the monotony of written text and it also helps your target audience to remember. Visuals such as infographics, images, and polls will increase dwell time. They also help you deliver useful content to your audience. This type of content is sharable and in this age of social media, this is one blogging trend you cannot ignore.
Voice Search
The rise of digital assistants and smart speakers have seen more people now using voice search. For bloggers, this is a revolutionary trend as it changes the way you create content.
You have to create content that will rank high on voice search for your target keywords. Think of the questions your target audience would most likely use to search. Once you know this, create conversational content that is natural and which answers such questions.
Final Thoughts
Blogging is fast-paced and you have to keep learning to stay abreast of the changes. Don’t stick to the old rulebook, but instead, follow content marketing gurus online to discover what is new. This way, you’ll have the edge over your competition. Internet users love trendsetters and you’ll always be one step ahead of everyone else in your niche.
